Changing Jenn(d)er

This blog has taken a direction we didn’t expect or hope for, in that essentially the only before and after’s we’ve been blogging about are all from one family (see our thoughts on Kim and Kylie), but how could we let Caitlyn Jenner’s big reveal pass us by without giving you a rundown on what we think she’s been up to?

Before we go any further: our special interest at CapeAesthetics is non-surgical aesthetics, and because of this we can only give opinion on the non-surgical changes Bruce may have made to reveal Caitlyn. Bruce Jenner has spoken openly about his FFS (facial feminisation surgery), including the shaving of his trachea, reducing of his brow bone (which entails an ear-to-ear incision over the top of your head, and then peeling the skin away from your forehead until you get to the eye sockets before shaving away at the bone that causes men to have a ridge at the brow…eek!), changing his hairline, shortening of the upper lip, jaw contouring and a rhinoplasty (nose job). Although we have seen many of these surgeries being performed, there are people far more qualified to comment on plastic surgery than lowly little us!

So let’s talk about the non-surgical changes Bruce may or may not have made. Please note that for almost every non-surgical procedure, there is a surgical and more permanent option. Which of these Bruce has had we do not know, but we do know that if he has had the surgical option, he COULD have achieved a similar result using the non-surgical methods we mention.

The first thing to always look at in any transformation is skin quality, and Caitlyn has done herself proud. What may be the most amazing of all of this to us is that this is still a 65 year old human! Her skin looks fantastic – especially if you recall how awful Bruce’s skin looked for most of KUWTK. Bruce had most likely started having laser treatments like Fraxel long before any of us had any inkling of Caitlyn. He also may have used treatments like PRPDermapen treatments and Botox mesotherapy to refine his skin and make it more feminine. Obviously Caitlyn also wears make up and that can help, but we maintain that looking good needs to start long before you put your foundation on.

Her skin quality may also have been improved by Botox treatments (and that’s a whole post for another day). It is quite evident from the porcelain appearance of Caitlyn’s forehead, the arch to her brow and the lack of marionette lines (the lines that run from the corner of your mouth onto your chin, usually more evident in aging males than females) that Caitlyn, like the rest of us, is a fan of a little neurotoxin maintenance. Botox is quite important in changing a look from male to female because in men a few horizontal lines across the forehead may actually make a man MORE appealing as it makes him look wise and distinguished, while in a woman these lines add to an aging appearance. This is part of the importance of Brotox vs Botox…

Next, having truly Kept Up with The Kardashians, it’s pretty obvious that Caitlyn has enhanced her cheek contour. Make up contouring aside, there is definitely a change in the volume in her cheeks. This may have been done using micro fat grafting, but the same look is easily, quickly and almost painlessly achieved using dermal fillers. By filling her cheek she may also have reduced the appearance of her tear troughs, which were quite pronounced on Bruce (she may also have used filler or surgery to correct her tear troughs). The difference between a male and a female’s cheeks may not be obvious to you right now, but if you look around you will notice that women tend to have fuller cheeks with more obvious “apples” of their cheeks. Their cheekbones are higher and more projected than those of males. Men tend to lose facial volume in the cheek area earlier than women, and usually start off with less cheek volume and a less defined cheekbone even early in life. On the “perfect” female face you will note that the cheekbones are the widest diameter on the face, where in males the jaw is as wide as the cheekbones. This gives women a more heart-shaped face, and men a more square one. This proportion is important in feminising a face.

Bruce spoke about his lip-shortening surgery in the “About Bruce” segment on KUWTK, which is a surgical procedure whereby a bow-shaped section of skin is excised from right at the base of the nose and then invisibly stitched together, bringing the lip closer to the nose. What’s more than that though, we suspect Caitlyn has filled her upper and lower lip in both the vermillion border (the line where the white skin above the lip meets the pink skin of the lip) and increased the volume of her lips. Women tend to have fuller lips with more projection of the lips, where men tend to have less definition between the skin above the lip and their lips themselves, and in profile men’s lips do not project as far as women’s. This has almost certainly been done using non-permanent Hyaluronic Acid dermal fillers…but maybe Caitlyn has just borrowed Kylie’s lip liner?

Caitlyn also sports a feminised chin and jaw line. This was most likely done surgically, during the “10-hour long surgery” Bruce underwent to become Caitlyn, however similar results are attainable using dermal fillers. Men undergoing FFS are not the only people who request a more feminine contour of the jaw and chin. By adding volume to the centre of the chin, or just underneath it, to complete the point of the “heart” in a heart-shaped face using dermal fillers even woman with a bit of a square jaw can look softer and more feminine. The rest of the jaw can be refined by injecting dermal fillers into any areas that have lost volume, decreasing the appearance of jowls and smoothing the jaw. FFS may also entail injecting Botox into the masseter muscle (the muscle we use for chewing, easily identified if you put your fingers on the corner of your jaw just under your ear and then clench and unclench your teeth) to debulk this muscle. This treatment is commonly used in bruxism (teeth-grinding), and is also often used to contour women’s faces into looking more feminine. As with all Botox treatments, it will need to be repeated regularly, but as time goes on the muscle will slim down significantly.

The last thing that we think Caitlyn probably achieved surgically, but which can be done non-surgically is allll the lifting. No, that’s not entirely true. In a 65 year old surgical lifting is the most effective and best kind of lifting to do. We all know Bruce had undergone a number of facelifts prior to his revealing Caitlyn, so perhaps the lift needed wasn’t quite as dramatic as it would have been had he not been hoisted before. Caitlyn has most likely had a surgical brow lift as well as Botox above the brow and filler under the brow to achieve the arched brow that that we associate with feminine faces. Men typically have a flatter eyebrow, with less skin visible above the brow bone but below the eyebrow hair, while women tend to have a few millimetres of skin above the brow bone beneath the tail of their eyebrow, which is usually enhanced further by plucking the tail of the brow so that it is narrower than the inner part of the brow increasing the amount of exposed skin. Caitlyn has also possibly also had another face lift. The easiest was to get these kinds of results non-surgically is using a product like the Silhouette Soft. These barbed threads can be used to lift the face or the brow and give a lift both mechanically as well as by increasing collagen formation underneath the skin, meaning that the result is immediate, and then still improves over time. This would not be the treatment of first choice in 65 year old unless they had already had a face lift since the Silhouette Soft lift does not involve cutting off any excess skin, however for a younger patient this may give just the right amount of lift with none of the trauma plastic surgery would cause to your face or bank account!

After all that we have to say no matter what Caitlyn has or hasn’t done, we salute her for her bravery. It is so heart-warming to see the way Bruce’s eyes light up when he speaks of her, and now that he has become her we feel that he visibly carries himself with more pride. We think that as a man he appeared to take very little pride in his appearance, while as a woman he is expressing his sexuality and enjoying his transformation. We are so glad he has had the courage to let himself be the person that makes him sparkle!

What do you think about Bruce’s transformation?

For more information on any of the procedures we have discussed (all of which are available to both men and women alike) please contact us on info@capeaesthetics.co.za or to make a booking give us a call on (021) 6833048 ext 1. Alternatively take a look at our website to see the services we offer: www.capeaesthetics.co.za

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[…] all muscles the more you exercise a muscle the bigger it gets. This can result in a wide, square, masculine look to the jaw. Botox® injected into these chewing muscles can reduce the size of the muscle […]